Compete for the Best-Crafted Play of the Year!
Young Playwrights’ Competition offers professional support and a unique creative experience to area teens, encouraging students to write at an exceptional level.
YPC offers students the chance to create a piece of literature that is truly their own, and then to see it brought to life on the Wayside Theatre stage! The chosen play goes through an intensive editing process with a member of the Wayside professional artistic team who acts as a dramaturg (a person responsible for interpreting texts and developing new works).
The winning play receives a professionally produced staged reading, which means that the director, actors, and designers are all professional theatre artists. The playwright attends rehearsals to help the director achieve their artistic vision. The staged reading is free and open to the public, and is performed on the stage at Wayside Theatre! After the reading, there is a talkback with the playwright, facilitated by Wayside’s artistic director.
The winner also receives a T. Carter Fussell Award for Excellence in Playwriting.
For more information and syle requirements please see the submission guidelines.
The final deadline for submissions is March 1, 2013.
2011 Winner: Much Ado About Nothing, Part 2 by Tiffany Waters
Who can enter?
Writers must be of high school age and currently attending public, private, or home school. There are no residency requirements, but participants must be able to provide their own transportation to and from Wayside Theatre for approximately four rewrite sessions, as well as a week of rehearsal leading up to the performance of their work.
Where do I send my script?
Young Playwrights' Competition
Wayside Theatre
P.O. Box 260
Middletown, Virginia 22645
2010 Winner: Ashes to Ashes by Tyler Fay Thorpe.
Contest Winners Will Receive:
First Place:
- A professionally produced public staged reading performed on the Wayside Stage.
- A $100.00 Savings Bond
- Two tickets to a play of their choice during the upcoming season.
Second Place:
- A $50.00 Savings Bond
- Two tickets to a play of their choice during the upcoming Season.
Honorable Mention will be presented to participants as deemed by the Judges. They will receive two tickets to a play of their choice during the upcoming season.
Why Participate?
Why participate? As the U.S. economy has struggled, creative writing programs in many schools have suffered. Wayside Theatre feels that encouraging the creative writing process is critical. With the possibility of a fully-produced staged reading and a monetary reward for their hard work in the form of a gift card, young playwrights have a very concrete reason to participate. Students come away from the Young Playwrights’ Competition knowing that their creative voice is important.
In addition, as young playwrights refine and polish their work, they learn about building complex characters, developing a plot, and creating a strong play. The process of writing a play makes students recognize and cut weaker points of their work as they figure out what story they want to tell and what parts of the play support that story. Playwrights also improve their critical thinking and persuasive writing skills, because they have to write both sides of the conflict in their plays – and they’ll have excellent writing samples and a resume-builder for college applications!
